In the same time when first object-oriented languages were emerging, another concept inspired by general relativity and quantum mechanics was taking shape – actor model. In general terms, the Actor model was defined 1973. and was developed on a platform of multiple independent processors in a network. Similar to the object-oriented approach, this essentially mathematical model, revolved around the concept of actors. An actor is the smallest structural unit of Actor model, and just like objects, they encapsulate data and behavior. In difference to objects, however, actors communicate with each other exclusively trough messages. Messages in actors are processed in a serial manner. According to the full definition of actors, they can do three things:

• send a finite number of messages to other actors
  
• create a finite number of new actors
  
• designate the behavior to be used for the next message it receives 
  

This document describes rules and recommendations for developing applications and class libraries using the C# Language. The goal is to define guidelines to enforce consistent style and formatting and help developers avoid common pitfalls and mistakes. Specifically, this document covers Naming Conventions, Coding Style, Language Usage, and Object Model Design. 

With .NET 5 released in November, it’s a good time to talk about some of the many improvements in the networking stack. This includes improvements around HTTP, Sockets, networking-related security, and other networking primitives. In this post, I will highlight some of the more impactful and interesting changes in the release. 

Those of you who worked with ASP.NET web forms will recollect that certain server controls such as DropDownList have a property called AutoPostBack. This property when set to true automatically submits the form to the server whenever the selection changes and raises some server side event. In modern web development people prefer to use Ajax over AutoPostBack but at times AutoPostBack is what you might need. To that end this article shows how AutoPostBack can be implemented in ASP.NET Core applications. 

• Use BindAttribute on the action method 
• Use [Editable] or [BindNever] on the model 
  
• Use two different models 
• Use a base class 
  
• Use ModelMetadataTypeAttribute 
  
• Explicit binding via TryUpdateModelAsync<> 
  

This was a very quick run down of some of the options available to you to prevent mass assignment. Which approach you take is up to you, though I would definitely suggest using one of the latter 2-model approaches. There are other options too, such as doing explicit binding via TryUpdateModelAsync<> but the options I've shown represent some of the most common approaches. Whatever you do, don't just blindly bind your view models if you have properties that should not be edited by a user, or you could be in for a nasty surprise.

And whatever you do, don't bind directly to your EntityFramework models. Pretty please. 

A .NET guideline specifies that an application should never throw a NullReferenceException. However, many applications and libraries do. The NullReferenceException is the most common exception happening. That’s why C# 8 tries to get rid of it. With C# 8, reference types are not null be default. This is a big change, and a great feature. However, what about all the legacy code? Can old libraries be used with C# 8 applications, and can C# 7 applications make use of C# 8 libraries?

This article demonstrates how C# 8 allows mixing old and new assemblies. 

.NET 8 Preview 4 is now available and includes many great new improvements to ASP.NET Core.

Here’s a summary of what’s new in this preview release:

Blazor

Streaming rendering with Blazor components

Handling form posts with Blazor SSR

Route to named elements in Blazor

Webcil packaging for Blazor WebAssembly apps

API authoring

Expanded support for form binding in minimal APIs

API project template includes .http file

Native AOT

Logging and exception handling in compile-time generated minimal APIs

ASP.NET Core top-level APIs annotated for trim warnings

Reduced app size with configurable HTTPS support

Worker Service template updates

Additional default services configured in the slim builder

API template JSON configuration changes

Support for JSON serialization of compiler-generated IAsyncEnumerable unspeakable types

Authentication and authorization

Identity API endpoints

Improved support for custom authorization policies with IAuthorizationRequirementData

ASP.NET Core metrics

For more details on the ASP.NET Core work planned for .NET 8 see the full ASP.NET Core roadmap for .NET 8 on GitHub. 

The Top 50 Tips for Better Angular Development

This article dives into essential tips and best practices that will help you enhance your Angular development skills. Whether you're a seasoned Angular developer or a beginner, these insights will help optimize your applications, improve code quality, and leverage Angular’s features effectively.